This portrait painting was a 2024 Christmas gift for my beautiful wife, Mary. I took the reference photo of Mary testing out a Martin Sunburst D-35 guitar while at “Martin on Main” an annual festival in Nazareth, PA in July 2019. I’m really pleased with how well I was able to capture Mary’s intense focus when immersed in her music.
Mary is a wonderfully gifted guitar player but her greatest gift, without a doubt, is her enormous heart and her singular ability to create welcoming communities of music lovers who come together every week for joyful singing, strumming, drumming and, most importantly, friendship and belonging.